building community resilience

We're grassroots Heathrow residents proving that communities less dependent on oil can be more resilient, stronger and happier. We take direct action on climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy by transitioning to a post-oil, community-led future for the Heathrow villages.

Hayes Carnival – 11th July – Save the Date. Transition Heathrow will be taking part in Hayes Carnival for the 6th year running. The theme this year is ‘Ringing in the changes – Hayes through the decades’.

Just like last years carnival, to start the day off there will be a procession with music, fun costumes and crazy bikes, leading us from Hayes Town to the free festival in Barra Hall Park.

In the Transition Heathrow ‘eco-zone’ at the park we’ll be putting on our usual range of activities promoting sustainable living and community resilience, including:

a solar powered sound stage with live music and performances.

a comfy well-being tent with space for guided yoga and massage.

crafts activities, making puppets, seed bombs and more.

pedal powered fruit smoothies and phone charging.

the Rocket Stove Cafe – serving hot drinks and home baked cakes.

an info stand and growing area with information about us and other local campaigns, and seeds to swap and share.

As in previous years, we’ll be joined by Friends of the Earth Hillingdon, and also for the first time Stop Heathrow Expansion will be bringing a stall to share news of the campaign against the third runway.

If you’re interested in getting involved with the Transition Heathrow space at Hayes Carnival, whether it’s providing music, baking or costume making, please get in touch asap at info@transitionheathrow.com.

We are celebrating the world’s biggest coffee morning in one of the smallest gardens (Sunday 14th September, 10am – 12 noon). The event is in the Secret Garden (near the information centre and stables) as part of Macmillan Cancer Support’s ‘World’s Biggest Coffee Morning’. We would be grateful if you could invite friends, make a cake or help on the day. There is an invitation attached.

On 20-21 September, the Berkeley stables, Secret Garden and St. Dunstan’s Church open their doors as part of London Open House weekend. There is an exhibition in the stables and members of the Friends will be in attendance to answer questions and collect memories. Sat. From 10.30am. On the Sunday (from 11.30am), classic motorcycles gather in the courtyard. Refreshments available, admission free.

Booking has opened for an open-air theatre production on 27 and 28 September (3pm).

Outline Theatre’s ‘Wheat to War’ is a celebration of local life and history, using song, dance and drama. Suitable for the whole family, the show features the coming of the Grand Union Canal, the building of the Great Western Railway and World War I, paying tribute to local heroes. Produced in partnership with the Imperial War Museum.

We have a bit of exciting news for you. On Thursday we’re beginning our new show live on local West London radio station Hayes FM.

On every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month from 1pm-3pm we bring you, live on air, ‘The Transition Heathrow show’. There will be a bit of talk, updates on whats happening with the Transition Heathrow project alongside funky tunes. You can tune in on 91.8 FM or online via the Hayes FM website.

A piece of common land is set to be developed on, which could set a widespread dangerous precedent. Please come and show support to help save Botwell Common and help protect our green belt land across the country.

A public protest has been planned on Saturday 2nd of November at 12 noon. The meeting point is at the bandstand in Hayes Town centre, next to Botwell Common.

Hillingdon Council, despite widespread opposition, submitted a plan to build a new school on Lake Farm Country Park (Botwell Common), which was approved at a stormy meeting at the council’s planning committee on 5 March 2013.

The council’s justification for building a new school comes from projected estimates of pupil numbers for the next few years. There are three other schools nearby which may be able to increase capacity to handle the expected rise. A former alternative site for a new school (a decommissioned swimming pool) was developed as housing.

John Mcdonnell, MP for Hayes & Harlington is urging people to come together in this crucial time. Resistance to the development of greenbelt land is supported by groups such as ‘Friends of Lake Farm’ and ‘Transition Heathrow’.

See you all at Hayes bandstand, on Saturday 2nd of November at 12 noon.

The Community Food Growers’ Network summer harvest jamboree is coming up on Sunday the 15th September at Grow Heathrow.

Full information is copied in below so tell your friends and come along for an afternoon of gardening fun. The day will include horticultural games, workshops of many shapes and sizes, an allotment produce competition, a shared dinner and plenty of dancing.

Outline of the Day:

11:30 – 12 Arrive and have tea.

12 – 1 Site Tour of Grow Heathrow and practical Horticulture session. This is a chance to have a tour of the garden with one of the growers and learn more about the site. There will also be a parallel workshop on saving your own seed: an introduction to the politics, poetics and practices of seed saving in community gardens.

1 – 2 Lunch: Bring a contribution to share.

2 – 3 Workshops: ‘Growing to sell in a community food setting’ and ‘An introduction to the Landworkers Alliance and La Via Campesina in the UK’.

3 – 5:45 Horticultural games and allotment produce competition: The famous horticultural games will be held to include salad tossing, potato and knife race and sack race. Prizes and prestige to be won. Taste based allotment produce competition – entrants to bring 2 pieces of their best leaf, root and fruit, which will be judged on taste by a panel of experts.

6 -7 Closing CFGN plenary.

7 – 9 Shared Feast, Music and Dancing: Please bring along a contribution of your produce for the shared dinner, which will be prepared in the afternoon, or a contribution in kind. There will be music and dancing too.

Face painting and crafts alongside the events all day!

Allotment produce competition: Gardeners from all over London will be taking part in the great taste based produce competition. Anyone wishing to enter should bring along 2 pieces of their best root, fruit and leaf. Remember we are using botanical terms here so your tomatoes and cucumbers will be considered fruit.

Sharing Food: Bring along some of your harvest, or a donation to cover costs. Produce will be cooked up into a shared lunch and dinner with some special pizza from the clay oven.

Thanks to Jonathan Goldberg for putting together the awesome photo montage of our third birthday party: jongoldberg.co.uk

We’ll be there in pirate badger costumes (well, at least one of us is; I’m dressing like a superhero bee), with pots of nasturtiums, marigolds, yarrow, the obscenely rich bass of our bike-powered sound system (because the only good system is a bike-powered sound system), marmalade, wild food workshops, face paints, dancing, singing and if you’re lucky, maybe even buckets of delirious joy.

Cranford Park has loads of brilliant events coming up, from balsam bashing to a bat walk and even an invitation into the secret garden.

This is a reminder that the next Quarterly Meeting of the Friends Group is this Thursday (May 23) at 7.30pm. It will be held at Crane Community Centre, Fuller Way (off Cranford Drive) and all are welcome. Bus E6 passes close by. I hope you will be able to join us to hear the latest about your park and contribute your views. The agenda and previous Minutes were sent to members on May 5.

This Sunday, May 26, the SECRET GARDEN (next to the Stable Block) will be open from 10-12 noon. Come and see how this is growing, thanks to our volunteers, and maybe lend a hand! There are always jobs to do: no experience is required, tools and refreshments are provided.

Sundays May 26, June 23, July 14, August 11, September 8, 10am -12 noon all dates. Friends Group SECRET GARDEN OPENINGS. Come to help with some light gardening or just to have a look at this special place (normally closed to the public) beside the stables. Tools and refreshments provided. Meet in the small walled garden, adjacent to Stable Block. (Friends & Macmillan Cancer Support).

Sunday June 9, 10.30am – 1pm. Friends Group with Thames 21 RIVER CRANE BALSAM BASH. Volunteers required!Himalayan balsam is an invasive plant, taking over large swathes of riverbank, yet it’s easy to remove at this time of year. Volunteers will be gathering all along the River Crane and Yeading Brook – help us include Cranford Park in the campaign! Refreshments provided.

Learn how to tell it apart from its poisonous lookalikes hemlock and fools parsley, so you can avoid the death that Socrates suffered at hemlock’s hands. And discover this extremely common plant’s potential for tabouleh, plus experiment with lacto-fermenting some in brine. Bring a bike for the foraging; after learning the key ID features, we’re cycling to the lake to test out our skills telling it apart from its lookalikes and to gather basketfuls!

The wild chervil wild food workshop runs from 2 – 5pm on Monday 22 April. It is free to everyone, but a donation of £5 is welcome from people who can afford it. Any donations will go towards Grow Heathrow getting a new chainsaw to help process timber for our off-grid wood powered shower and burners.

Subscribe to our Mailing List

Sign up to our phone tree

Statements of Support

“I would like to say a big thank you to all you young people,for what you have done to help in the "No Third Runway" campaign and what you have done to the old Berkeley Nursery site. The time it must have taken you to clear up the rubbish and glass, well done to you all... And once again thank you!!!!!!”by BRIAN, LOCAL RESIDENT